


I saw a pale horse...

by DarkmoonSigel



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi | Spirited Away
Genre: 14th Century, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crossover, Crowley Hates the 14th Century (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), F/M, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Sick Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25619620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkmoonSigel/pseuds/DarkmoonSigel
Summary: Crowley hates the 14th century. Here’s why.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 77





	I saw a pale horse...

**Author's Note:**

> Check out the podcast ‘Sawbones’ with Dr. McElroy and her husband Justin. Truly a voice of reason in these trying times.

The 14th century 

“No, I’m not letting you rub shit into your wounds.”

“But the others...” The feverish man began to argue, weak but still willing to demand ludicrous notions. 

“I don’t give a good Her damn what the others say. I’m the doctor here, and you are not rubbing shit in your wounds, or anywhere else on your body, for that matter.” Crowley said, using his staff to push the man over to his other side so he could attend to the swollen lymph nodes there. It was a smelly disgusting business, lancing the black pus out of them, damn things the size of grapefruits. “Fucking Hell, what is with time period’s wanting to be covered in shit?”

Finishing up with the man, Crowley felt something familiar on the edge of his senses. It was fainter in strength than it should have been. After making the man promise not to rub poop anywhere on himself, no matter what the reason may be, Crowley went in search of the source. 

Aziraphale was in the next village over, the populace of it in terrible shape. Unfortunately, that was a common theme to find in most places in this day and age. What was not common was a female presenting angel, Aziraphale dressed as a plague nurse as she tended to the sick and the dying. 

While the plague doctors looked more akin to crows, the plague nurses reminded Crowley of doves. Their masks were more conical than curved, and they were outfitted in more dirty whites and soft grays than black. They wore long sleeved oiled dresses with equally long multi-pocketed aprons covers in animal fat. A head covering, almost like a nun’s habit, protected the rest that their masks could not. They were a rarity to see, but growing more essential the longer this plague inflicted itself upon humanity. 

Even all covered up from head to toe while wearing a mask, Crowley knew it was Aziraphale the moment his eyes laid upon the angel. As per usual, Aziraphale was distracted enough by life for the demon to sneak up on her. That, and there was deeply something off about the angel. Crowley could sense it, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on the what. 

“Hello, angel.” Crowley said, smiling as Aziraphale startled, but only just barely. 

“Crowley, fancy meeting you here.” Aziraphale’s response was lackluster, sad, distracted even. “I don’t suppose this is all your demonic working.”

“You know it’s not.” Crowley said, not bothering to get snippy about it. Aziraphale obviously wasn’t looking for a fight. What she wanted was a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this suffering.

“What are you doing here then? Formenting again?” Aziraphale asked, already bending back to her foul work. Angels shouldn’t be covered in other people’s pus and blood, Crowley decided. 

“Don’t need to. Everyone’s already miserable enough, and being complete bastards to one another. I don’t see the point of adding in to that.” 

“So you’re just basically doing the very least you can do on your reports, you wily old serpent.” Crowley heard the ghost of a smile coming from the angel’s tired voice.

“Got it in one.” Crowley chuckled, “Dear Hell, plague still killing loads. Smashing success. Infantcide and cannibalism are both on the rise.”

“They’ll probably give you a commendation.” Aziraphale said softly, what little good humor had gathered in her voice left in a rush as her entire being drooped. Crowley quietly cursed at himself for bringing up the baby snacks. 

The 14th century had been as unkind to the angel as it had to everyone else. Aziraphale was the leanest Crowley had ever seen the angel. It made sense though. Everyone was starving, even kings and their courts. Not having a need to eat to keep living, Aziraphale wasn’t about to take so much as a crumb of bread from the humans while they were in such dire need, and the angel’s miracles couldn’t be wasted in frivolous things. 

Remembering Rome, Crowley longed for a happy plush angel, full of silly chatter, oysters, and wine. 

“You look dead on your feet. Come have some wine with me.” Crowley said as he helped her flip the human over. He could already tell it was a lost cause, but Aziraphale carried on. 

“I can’t. I have more people to check in on the next village over.”

“Angel, it’s a plague. There’s always going to be more. Take a moment for yourself every now and again. When was the last time you did that?” Crowley asked. 

Aziraphale didn’t answer so Crowley took that as a sign that it had already been too long to remember. Taking the angel’s hand, Crowley led them out of the miserable little village of the dying. Aziraphale didn’t resist as she brought into the woods, the two of them finding a small empty clearing nearby. 

Peeling off his mask, Crowley took a deep breath of air that didn’t stink of rot, disease, and death. Plagues were always a smelly business. 

“Do you know why the humans keep wanting to rub excrement in their wounds?” Aziraphale asked after a quiet moment between them. She still hadn’t taken her mask off yet though. “There was some charlatan here earlier trying to sell a poultice made from tree resin, white lily root, and his, well, you know.”

“Shit?”

“Yes, that.”

“I have no fucking idea.” Crowley sighed, “I think they’re just throwing things at the metaphorical wall to see what sticks.”

“That would explain the chicken.” Aziraphale sighed. It took a moment for that to sink in.

“No, most certainly the fuck it does not. What are you going on about? What chicken? Why is there a chicken involved?” Crowley didn’t like the sound of this. 

“The chicken method.” Aziraphale said, like that miraculously cleared everything up. 

“I need you to keep going because I have no idea what the chicken method is, if my prolonged silence wasn’t telling enough on the matter.”

“You’re really not going to like this.” Aziraphale assured. 

“I already don’t like it, but tell me anyway.”

“One straps a live chicken to the swollen buboes, and allows for the pus to drain over the chicken. You then clean the chicken off, and strap it back on. You keep it there until the chicken dies, or the person you’re treating does.” Aziraphale told the demon, Crowley thinking it was an excellent time to make wine appear in hand. 

“No. You’ve made that one up. You’re having me on.”

“I’m not. I swear it’s all true.” Aziraphale shook her head, “Some of them are bathing in urine. That, or drinking it, and don’t even get me started about the blood letting.”

“Yeah, they’ve been rather obsessed with that for while now. Dunno why any of that caught me off guard. Do you know that some of the crazier bastards have taken to living in the sewers?” Crowley said, offering the angel the jug of wine. She accepted it, but still made no move to take off her mask, or partake in it. “Are you going to make me drink that all by myself?”

“That’s a rather good mask.” Aziraphale answered instead, nodding to the one in the demon’s lap, and it was. Made from metal and leather with eyes of red glass, the crow’s beak was the pinnacle of what a plague doctor’s mask should be. 

“Bright young lad made it for me before he passed. Such a waste of talent. What little living he did was put to good use. He was ahead of his time really. Could have revolutionized blacksmithing if he’d been given half a chance.” Crowley said, letting his words turn dark as they were brewed in his bitterness. Aziraphale started to make soft noises, Crowley realizing after a moment that she was crying. 

Taking off his oiled gloves, Crowley reached over to take off the angel’s mask with gentle fingers. Her face was dirty, but what made Crowley gasp was at how gaunt it had become. He barely recognized Aziraphale in that drawn, carved out face. Her eyes were still the same though, made all the more blue by golden tears.

Overcome, Crowley reached for her, gathering the angel up into his arms to start kissing those tears from her face. He ignored how his lips stung from it. Aziraphale felt like nothing underneath her many layers, all skin and bones. 

To his utter amazement, the angel did more than just allow him this closeness, this sudden affection. Aziraphale responded with a fervor of her own, clinging to the demon like he was the last solid thing left in this world, her starved thin fingers like iron gripping at his long hair. It was her that found his mouth with her own hungry kisses, thoroughly tasting him. It was almost perfect...Except, Aziraphale was still crying, quietly weeping as she chased his mouth to keep them sealed together.

“Angel,” Crowley barely managed to resist, torn between getting what he so hideously desired, and his growing concern. 

“Let me do this, please. I need it. I need you.” Aziraphale breathed out, finely trembling under the demon’s touch. 

“Tell me exactly what you need. Tell me, and I’ll see what I can do for you.” Crowley pressed. He could feel something was wrong. “What is it you really want?”

“You.”

“You’ve got that already. What can I do for you?”

“I want to be some place that doesn’t smell of death. I don’t want to feel misery anymore.” Aziraphale sobbed as she still tried to catch the demon’s lips, making due with his sharp cheeks. It made Crowley silently curse at Heaven and God. No other angels was made to suffer through things like Aziraphale was made to endure. It wasn’t right. 

It was the easiest thing in Creation for Crowley to pick up the angel, and whisk her away to a part of the world that wasn’t suffering like this. Deep in the quiet of a bamboo forest, Crowley landed them beside a hidden hot spring. He didn’t like how light Aziraphale felt in his arms, couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“I’ll get us some nibbles and a change of clothing. Saw a decently sized town on the way in.” Crowley said as he threw some wards up. Aziraphale did the same, but once again, something was different about her. “I’ll be back soon enough.” 

Though he made quick work of it, Crowley was gone longer than he would have liked. He had a too full basket of lovely goodies to make up for it. What he saw made the demon drop everything out of his arms, Aziraphale getting out of the spring.

The Greeks, and the Romans had worshipped her. She had always been seen as a goddess of beauty or fertility, a being of plenty, her form and face bountiful. Her mere presence could make plants bloom, and people flourish. Water ran pure if she dipped even so much as a toe into it, and animals gentled from the mere sound of her voice. Her generous form and personality had been inspiring poets and artists since the beginning, their admiration for her timeless. 

What stood now in her place was a famine in the flesh. Personally speaking, Crowley always ran on the thin side, but he had never looked as emaciated as this, pale skin pulled to tautly over sharp bones. Where luscious locks once grew, long matted hair hang limp from her head like wet straw.

“Angel! Aziraphale, what happened to you?!” It was even worse than he presumed, Aziraphale looking more like Death than an angel. What really made the demon stare in horror though were the state of the angel’s wings. They were plucked thin enough in places of their feathers and meat so that the bones underneath were showing. Cold flooding into his chest, Crowley knew what was wrong with Aziraphale now as he struggled to breath. His angel was dying.

They were immortal, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be killed. It was just extremely difficult to do, but it could be done. The war in heaven had been proof enough of that. 

“Drat. I tried to be quick, but the water was so lovely and warm.” Aziraphale said faintly instead it explaining herself. Looking a little wobbly on her feet, she reached for her plague clothes, but needed to immediately jump back as they went up in flames. “That was unnecessary.”

“I got you other things to wear.” Crowley said tightly, glaring at the flames as they made quick work of the vile stained garments.

“Please don’t be angry with me. I simply couldn’t bear it right now.” Aziraphale said, sounding very small as she pulled her wings back in. It was not an improvement, Crowley seeing every knob of her spine, her shoulder blades like bone wings. 

“I’m not angry with you. I just want to know what’s happening to you.” Crowley said, finding the beautiful silk robe of white and blue he’d bought for her. Wrapping it around the angel for her, it somehow made her look even more fragile. 

“Thank you. It’s been so long since I’ve felt love.” Aziraphale sighed as she leaned against him. 

“Love? Where are you feeling that?”

“From you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m a demon.” Crowley began to panic. “Aziraphale, tell me what’s happened to you. Has Heaven done this to you?”

“I learned how to do human magic.” Aziraphale said with shrug. 

“I don’t follow. What about it? Even better question, why would you learn how to do it? You already have powers.”

“My miracles are monitored and documented. Human magic, on the other hand, is not.” Aziraphale said, not meeting Crowley’s eyes. “There is a spell that can do what Jesus did with the loaves of bread and fishes if one has an item from a celestial being.”

“Like a feather.” Crowley filled in the rest for himself. That’s wasn’t an easy miracle. “But why?”

The look Aziraphale wore was haunted, sorrow wounding her eyes. “Because they are eating each other. I can’t just stand by, and do nothing.”

“You are so clever. Why would go and do something so stupid?” Crowley was at the end of his patience. 

“I don’t expect you to understand.” Aziraphale dared to huff. 

“All you’re doing is stealing from Peter to pay Paul. So what? To what end? Do you plan to just keep feeding pieces of yourself to them until there’s nothing left of you?” Crowley demanded. 

“I-I had to do something.” Aziraphale said quietly. 

“You can’t keep on like this. You’re killing yourself.”

“Quit being so melodramatic.” The angel trying to make light of it, but Crowley had seen her wings. 

“Hardly. What do you think will happen if you run into any other demon?” The demon asked as he grabbed the angel by the shoulders, staring her down. 

Aziraphale already knew the answer to that, the angel looking away. “They would have a field day with you. Death would be a blessed reprieve after they were done having all their fun with you. You‘ve made it so that you can’t even fly away to safety.”

“Nothing to be done about it now.” Aziraphale said softly. 

“There’s plenty to be done, you daft angel. I know a place. I’m taking you there to heal.” Crowley decided 

“I can hardly leave my post.”

“I’ll cover for you.”

“But they’ll check!” Aziraphale tried for stern, but didn’t really have the strength to pull it off. “We not debating this.”

“You’re right. We’re not.” Crowley sighed, opening his arms. The angel couldn’t resist, starving for the only nourishment as she absorbed his love, something the demon shouldn’t be feeling.

“I’m sorry, angel.”Crowley said softly as he kissed her neck, finding the pulse point of it. 

“For what?” Aziraphale asked, the answer registering in her blood as Crowley pressed his fangs into her neck. His unique venom took hold quickly, the angel’s eyes fluttering shut. It shouldn’t have any effect on her at all, but in this state, she fell into a deep sleep.

Collecting Aziraphale up into his arms, Crowley flew them out of Japan, and through the between places the supernatural, occult, and very unlucky humans could travel too. Their destination was a bathhouse, the type of which existed to only serve gods, the Others, and spirits. Skipping out of the usual pleasantries of checking in with the staff, the demon went straight to the top floor where the purveyor of the establishment lived. Crowley knew that the witch who ran it would already be waiting for him.

“Master Crowley, you honor us again with your presence.” 

“Hello, Yubaaba. Long time, no see.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Your comments despise the 14th century as well. Your kudos want some damn bread.


End file.
